Four Squares and two Boulevards
Competition Seoul Korea _ with OKRA_ www.okra.nl
The project is a suggestion to revisit the topic of the historical square, transforming the competition site into a sequence of four squares constantly mutating, separated by a continuous body of water. Evoking the topic of the square does not mean to work backwards in history; on the contrary, it means to proceed forwards, overcoming the idea of a continuous urban space on a city scale, while fragmenting it into connecting spaces, linked to single buildings through a differentiation of uses. The cities of ancient Rome had a ‘Forum’ in the middle of them. They were public spaces surrounded by buildings. Such city structure was a standard for the cities of Medieval Europe. On the other hand, the cities in East Asia had wide boulevards running southward from palaces in the north. Gwanghwamun city project is conceived as an integrated sequence of squares and boulevards.
Within this composition, each square relates in sequence with the others trough a gradient of situations, shapes, colours, climates, uses of the boulevards and the open spaces of the whole urban area: from the strolling space adjacent to the street, to the resting space of the artificial landscape flanking the buildings.